Economist.com. The Economist is out with a very insightful feature piece on Microsoft’s most famous blogger Robert Scoble. The article mostly focuses on Scoble’s history and the genesis of Channel 9 and the role that Scoble has played in Microsoft’s transparency.
“Mr Pryor figured that the straight-talking Mr Scoble would make a reassuring pilot or a great evangelist. So he hired him. Mr Scoble, for his part, simply kept doing what he was good at. His blog which he has kept outside of Microsoft’s computers, and to which he usually posts in the wee hours after midnight reads like a stream of consciousness. A reader might discover, for instance, that Mr Scoble’s new wife just became an American citizen, or how to win a cheese contest. A good blog lets you see the mess; lets you see behind the scenes, he writes in one entry.
But Mr Scoble is at his best when he opines ruthlessly on Microsoft’s technology. When Google or Apple or anybody else makes a better product, he blogs it. I’ve been pretty harsh on Microsoft over the years, he says. This gives him credibility, and thus power. If somebody somewhere takes a swipe at Microsoft that is unfair, Mr Scoble can cry foul and actually have his readers concede the point.”
Congratulations to Robert on the nice coverage. It is nice to see that other companies are finally beginning to see the value of transparency.
Thanks, Hugh.